


grown up stuff

by starforged



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: 5 Times, Canon Compliant, F/M, Spoilers for S7
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-30
Updated: 2018-08-30
Packaged: 2019-07-04 11:16:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15840138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starforged/pseuds/starforged
Summary: Five times that Pidge thought Lance was an absolute idiot. One time that she realized he wasn't.





	grown up stuff

i.

“ _Listen_ , Pidge. It’s Pidge, isn’t it?” Lance’s arm is heavy around her shoulders when he plops it there. Pidge grinds her teeth and attempts to extract herself, but he’s got an iron grip.  


He’s stronger than he looks. Surprising.

“Yes,” Pidge seethes between her teeth. “Let me go.”

“Pidge, Pidge, Pidge.” With his free hand, he waves it out in front of them. “There are a sea of girls out there just waiting for us cadets to sweep them off their feet. Right, Hunk?”  


The other boy that was assigned to her team stands awkwardly in front of them, shrugging his shoulders and giving an apologetic smile. A lot of help he is. 

“So go with Hunk. I don’t have time for this.”  


Incredibly, Lance pulls her in closer, and - well. It’s not so much to do with him as it is being close to a boy she’s never met, but she’s up against his side and she has to fight a blush. She also has to still hide the fact that she’s a girl, and this is entirely too much of an invasion of personal space for her to be comfortable with.

So Pidge struggles. 

“It’ll work better if the three of us go! Like a bonding exercise.”  


“I don’t want to bond with you!”  


“Lance, he doesn’t want to go.” Hunk is beginning to fidget.   


Ugh. 

“He just hides away all the time, and we should be friends!” Lance argues.   


Pidge is standing right there, a flailing mess attempting escape. “Why would I be friends with such an _idiot!_ ”

* * *

ii.

Goo drips from her spoon as she watches it. It’s green and slimy and moves with an interesting consistency. Not quite mush, not quite jello. Her stomach misses burgers, fries, and her mom’s chicken special. Her everything misses her mom, now that she’s letting herself go down that route. She hasn’t been trying to. It’s hard. Being far away from her mother, not knowing where her father or Matt were. 

And here she was, in a castle with mechanical lions and aliens and goop that was supposed to nourish her, stuck with her flight group and loner Keith and _Shiro_. 

There are a lot of thoughts to sort through. A lot of emotions to shuffle aside and motivations to prioritize. There’s food to investigate. 

That’s how Lance catches her unaware. His hands slam down on the table across from her, his lip turned up. He glares.

She squeaks. _Squeaks._  Jumps. Her heart is going a thousand miles a minute, and her fist is even faster. That grumpy look Lance is giving her? It dissolves underneath her hit.

“What!” He jumps back, both hands clapping over his nose.

“What!” It’s a mixture of surprise, worry, and angry. “Why would you scare me?”  


“You _hit me._ ” Indignation. As if he had the right to be mad for her reflexes!  


“You scared me!”  


Blood drips from behind the cage of his hands, and there is a twinge of regret. It blows out of her nose as an annoyed sigh.

“I had questions!”  


“That’s not how you ask questions, Lance!” Still, Pidge hurries to the other side of the table where he’s still holding his face. “Let me see.”  


“So you can enjoy your moment of bloodlust? No way,” he mutters.   


He doesn’t move when she reaches for his wrists though. All bluster and no bite. She easily tugs his hands down. It’s a small stream, barely noteworthy for people who call themselves Paladins of Voltron. 

“You’re fine,” she scoffs and drops his hands.   


“It hurts,” he whines in return.   


* * *

iii.

Romantic relationships are an anomaly. Not that she doesn’t think about love. She loves her family, she loves her friends, she loves Green. Love isn’t hard. Romance is strange though, and she isn’t sure if that’s because she’s never really had time for it. There was always something new to discover or create. Then Matt and her dad disappeared. Then space. Voltron. 

It’s obvious to all of them that Allura has the hots for Lotor. Pidge guesses she gets it, on a purely biological standpoint. He’s part Altean, so that has to be a plus in his favor. And Pidge supposes that his hair is - it’s _so_  beautiful. And he’s smart, cunning. Allura deserves that, someone with the same kind of fortitude as her. 

And it’s obvious to Pidge that Lance has feelings for Allura. He’s done the same biological calculations and come up with envy. 

What does it matter? Lance flirts with every girl that comes within viewing distance, as if sharing the same air was a definite sign of compatibility. She doesn’t get it. Is that supposed to be attractive to other girls?

Maybe. She remembers their time at the Garrison and the stupid girls that would hover around him like he was some hot shot. Ugh. That means when they return home, he really _will_  be one, and the girls will be even more annoying. What did he expect, that someone with actual brains like Allura would fall for that?

“You’re moping.”   


Lance glances up at her, moping face fully engaged. “I am not.”

“You are. If it bothers you that much, just go tell her.” Honesty seems like the best policy.   


He considers it. She can tell. She knows when the wheels start to slowly turn inside of Lance’s head. It’s this look on his face, a dim light growing brighter with each tick. 

Everything falls dark again. “It’s not that easy, Pidge. This is grown up stuff.”

She crosses her arms over her chest and rolls her eyes. “As if _you_ were a grown up.”

_“Hey!”_   


* * *

iv.

His hands are bound. He has no weapon. They’re powerless. Utterly defenseless. 

It doesn’t stop Lance from not thinking things through like always. He reacts immediately. He’s always been like that. 

Her heart pounds in her chest. A shot of fear has begun to snake through her veins. Not for herself, though. 

For Lance, as he tosses himself ineffectually at their captor as if he was going to rip her head off. Pidge hears the tremble in his voice, the anger that brought him to his feet. If his hands were free, she’d bet on him. She’d bet everything on him.

 _If his hands were free_. 

* * *

v.

_“Oh, Katie.”_

Pidge is in her mother’s arms again, with her father. There’s nothing in the whole universe that could destroy this moment. 

Not even the soft whisper of Lance’s voice as he asks, “Wait, her name is Katie?”

* * *

vi.

Her old laptop is a familiar comfort, but an oddly clunky piece of technology. There are a million things she can do to improve it. It’s a bolstering thought while she’s sort of hospital-bound. What she really wants is to be here, on Earth, preparing, building, creating. 

So this will do.

“Knock knock.”  


She doesn’t even glance up from her calculations. “You know that just because you make the sound with your mouth doesn’t mean it’s a real knock, right?”

“Oh come on, Pidge.” Lance sighs his way into her hospital room. “I figured you could use the sound of my voice. To, uh, you know, help you heal?”  


“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.” But it gets her to look up, and her voice is soft. She doesn’t mean it. It’s - well, it’s hard to explain, but hearing him, seeing him? It does help. Not as much as her renovation plans, but hey. Not everyone can be a computer, right?  


He stands a little bit away from her bed, shuffling around a bit. 

Odd.

It’s not like he isn’t comfortable with invasion of personal space.

“Should you be out of bed?” she asks.

“Oh, yeah. Totally fine. Needed to stretch my legs a bit.” He nods. Stretches a leg out. Winces.   


With a roll of her eyes, she scoots over on her bed and pushes a few pieces of machinery out of the way. “Sit down before you hurt yourself.”

He hesitates. “What, really?”

Something weird is happening here. So she glares at him in response until he gingerly plants himself on the edge of the space she gave him. Clears his throat. Looks at her, looks away, looks again. They sit in silence until his curiosity is enough to have him lean in to look at her screen.

“You’re being weird,” she points out.  


He clears his throat again. “Yup. Yeah. I mean, listen.”

He’s… too close, she finally realizes. To her face, that is. There’s nowhere for her to run, so she just presses her lips together and ignores the heat in her face. And he’s watching her. Like really watching her. The wheels are turning in his head as he does his little up-close observation. 

Silent again. Her heart is in her throat, her stomach in knots. What does that even mean? Is she going to be sick? 

Lance frowns. Closes his eyes. Gives an obnoxiously loud sigh. 

He smells like generic hospital shampoo. 

“See! I told you this was difficult! Just tell her? Ugh. I can’t just _tell_  you, Katie. It’s weird.”  


Pidge lets the world settle around her before she even attempts to sort through the mess of his outburst. He called her Katie. He said that he can’t tell _her_. It comes back to her after a moment, their conversation on Lotor’s ship. 

“Wow,” she breathes out. She feels like the air is being sucked out of her lungs, and maybe it’s not the greatest sound in the world because Lance is suddenly not close enough for her. In fact, he’s further away. Sheepish. “You were right.”

“Wait– what? Did you just tell me I was _right_  about something?” His eyes narrow in suspicion.   


“Did you just call me Katie?” she fires back, eyebrows raised.  


“Wanted to try it out. If… that’s okay?” His hand is on the back of his neck as he glances at her and away again.   


Pidge closes her laptop and sets it aside. “Try it again.”


End file.
